Rainbows
by The Wandering Pen
Summary: Hiko and his student on one amazing night in September 1859. Not yaoi. Suitable for tweenies and up.


**Rainbows**

"Shisho! Quick! Come look!"

Kenshin's excited voice cut across the silence of the twilight, shattering the haiku forming in Hiko's mind. He made a futile mental grab for the pieces of it to no avail.

_Baka deshi_, he thought, staring at the sumi-e painting he'd done earlier, lying on the low table in front of him awaiting his further inspiration. The haiku was supposed to compliment it and make it very desirable for people to want to buy and take home with them. _Doesn't he realize that if I don't get these done for sale tomorrow in the village, there will be no money for this winter's rice? And no rice means the possibility of an irritated shisho eating his baka deshi instead? Although I'd be lucky to render a bowl of soup out of his scrawny butt._

"Shisho, you gotta see this! It's like a dancing rainbow!"

_What? Rainbows? At night? Don't tell me he's eaten the wrong mushrooms again._ Hiko carefully cleaned the now-useless ink off his brush and set it on the brush rest next to the painting, glancing out the open doorway of the cabin. It was fully dark now, and he couldn't see Kenshin in the cleared yard. He got to his feet unhurriedly and took the three steps across the room that brought him to the door.

"Kenshin, if you aren't doing those five hundred strokes I assigned you on each of the nine points of attack…" His voice died in his throat and he stared. Then he stepped fully out into the yard, turning a slow circle. The entire sky was a corona of colored light around a clear, star-filled dark patch above his head. The ribbons of light shifted and changed color as he watched: white, green, yellow, orange, red, and pink, and he thought he could hear the faint chiming of bells. It was fascinating, mesmerizing, and at the same time, unsettling, and all he could do was stare.

"See, Shisho? It _is_ like rainbows," Kenshin said, his face a pale oval in the darkness, touched with colored light. "Have you seen it before? What causes it?"

"I don't know, Kenshin," he said soberly, honestly. For once he didn't feel like teasing the boy. "I saw it once in Hokkaido years ago, but it was just one green ribbon. Nothing like this. I have no idea what would cause this."

They watched in silence for a long while as the light shimmered and changed around them, but never grew any less. Finally, Kenshin raised the sword that had hung forgotten from his hand and moved away to start practicing his kata. Hiko didn't point out that he probably hadn't finished his assignment – if he was practicing, that was good enough. The sword master simply stepped inside the cabin for his jug of sake and a cup, and then settled himself on the log in front of the door to watch his student and the sky. But as he watched the boy leap and strike in a silent martial dance against a background of coruscating red light, premonition settled heavier than the cape across his shoulders. Although not a superstitious man, he couldn't shake the image of his student bathed in blood.

_Vocabulary – for those who need it_

_Shisho - Master_

_Baka deshi – Idiot apprentice_

_Sumi-e - __Black Ink Painting_._ Black ink on white paper, simple, elegant and serene. Simplicity is the most outstanding characteristic of Sumi-e. An economy of brush strokes are used to communicate the essence of the subject. (Description gratefully borrowed from silver dragon studios - they described it much better than I could)_

_kata – a set pattern of movements in martial arts that simulates a fight and encourages perfection of movement, concentration, and muscle memory_

_A/N: This one was inspired by watching a documentary on the sun the other night (Bless the History Channel!). In a section where they talked about solar flares and the effect they had on the earth's magnetic field, which is what creates the auroras, they mentioned a "perfect storm" aurora in 1859. This flare, a particularly strong one, was pointed right at the earth when it let loose and the result was a light display seen as far south as Rome and Hawaii, which is very unusual. They did a computer-animated simulation of what it might have looked like, which was pretty awesome. I, living not-quite-in-the-real-world as usual, immediately thought "Hey – 1859 – I bet Hiko and Kenshin would have seen that!" and so off I went, following the muse…_


End file.
